Pichilemu is a small surfing town about three to four hours south of Santiago by bus. I went a few weeks ago with some startup chile friends and it was beautiful. It was just the break I needed from the heat of Santiago in the middle of the summer. There were huge beaches, big waves, warm sun, great food and interesting people.
We stayed at an awesome hostel, right on the beach, about five minutes walk from the town center called Pichilemu Surf Hostel. The owner is a Dutch guy who bought the land about 20 years ago for $12,000 and built the hostel himself. He had to completely rebuild in the last year after a tsunami wiped out his beach front property after the huge earth quake from a year ago. Many buildings were damaged in Pichilemu and a few were killed, including a few tourists. We saw the evidence on a beach where the only thing that remained of beach front restaurants was the floor.
The seafood was phenomenal and cheap. Fisherman hauled their catch in and came right up onto the beach to sell their catch. They were selling 3 whole fish, cleaned and filleted for $2. They has fresh shrimp, crab, barnacles, conger eel and even a little shark. We stopped for a super fresh white fish ceviche on the beach for about $2 and later that night shared a pastel de jaiba, which is sort of like a crab/cheese casserole. I had fried conger eel, which is really a white fish that tastes sort of like cod. It was truely awesome food.
We watched the sun set over the pacific each day and then drank cheap beer and wine either by a fire or at one of the local bars. We met new friends at bars and everyone went to the beach to drink, play music and have fun until 7am. It was my kind of town and I wish I could have stayed for longer. If you like to cook and go to Pichilemu, rent a cheap cabin with a kitchen and take advantage of the amazing seafood!
I spent four days in San Francisco after New Years for some business meetings. I’ve been to San Fran multiple times before and it’s one of my favorite cities in the US. Since Jesse and I had to work, we didn’t get to do that much exploring.
As always, San Francisco food did no disappoint. We checked out Dosa, which had amazing Indian food, a decent restaurant in Chinatown and walked all over the city. The real gem of the visit was Chocolate Covered. We stayed with the owners Jack and Marilyn at their house in Noe Valley, which was a great break from hotels on many of my previous trips.
Chocolate Covered
Jack was Jesse’s Dad’s college roommate and he’s now the owner of the best chocolate shop in San Francisco and the best I’ve ever been to in the world. He only carries top quality chocolate bars. Although the store is small, it’s packed with interesting, high quality chocolate from all over the world. He also makes hand made boxes with San Francisco landmarks and street signs, which have been a huge hit. It has the most 5 star ratings on Yelp that I have ever seen and it deserves it!
My favorite chocolate was a spicy chile dark chocolate, followed by a salted, spicy dark chocolate. The store is a treasure, so do yourself a favor and check it out if you’re in San Fran and you like chocolate.
I went to LA around New Years to go watch Wisconsin play in the Rose Bowl. It was a great trip, besides Wisconsin losing in the last minute to a very good TCU team. Spending four days in and around LA confirmed that it’s not the city for me. I had never been to LA before since business/family usually takes me to San Francisco and the valley.
LA is HUGE. I knew it was big, but coming on the airplane, you can see it stretch for miles and miles. You need a car if you want to go anywhere. Even in places like Santa Monica, which I enjoyed, require car trips to get anything. We went out two nights in Hollywood and I really didn’t like the vibe. People were so concerned with image, which is my polar opposite. I really don’t like the focus on money, appearance and wealth. Everyone is keeping up with the Jones. Some guys skipped the line at a club because the bouncer said they spend $10k per week at the bar. That’s insane, probably stupid and potentially wrong. It’s foreign to me.
I got the chance to hang out with my friend Won, who I had not seen since college in Madison. Won is from South Korea but decided to keep his US citizenship when he turned 25 when Korea made him choose between the US and Korea. He joined the air force and now helps manage advanced satellite programs out in LA. We had a great dinner in Santa Monica, then went to the Rose Bowl, where I had the chance to see my friends Bryan and Melissa, who I hadn’t seen since their wedding. Luckily, the two tailgates I wanted to go to were right next to each other!
The Rose Bowl is an amazing setting, but the facilities are really old. The sun setting over the san gabriels was amazing, but it was really hard to get there, the wait for beer/bathrooms was really long and everything was EXPENSIVE. It was still completely worth it. After the loss, Won took me to an amazing Korean restaurant, which helped ease the pain. We had noodle soup, korean bbq ribs and other delicacies. It was a perfect end to the day.
I can’t see myself ever living in LA, because I really value living in a walkable city and I really dislike the image you need to project in LA. I’m sure I’ll be back to visit, but I much prefer San Francisco.
Facebook, Twitter and Wisconsin in general was set ablaze late last weekend when Wisconsin’s new Governor Scott Walker proposed a bill that would strip public employee unions of the right to collectively bargain on any issues, besides pay. Unions would also not be allowed to automatically deduct dues from paychecks and would be required to hold secret ballot votes each year to verify that members still wanted to be in the union. If a majority did not, the union would be disbanded.
There are four main things I don’t like about the Walker vs. Public Unions battle going on back home in Wisconsin.
First, I don’t like that Walker is just ramming this bill through without any debate. It’s same problem I had with the Democrats in Congress the past two years. Our political system should not be either side ramming things through whenever they have the power. There should be debate, an attempt at compromise, then a bill, then if necessary, ram away.
Second, exempting firefighter and police unions from the bill is a clear case of quid pro quo. These two unions are the only ones who supported Walker in his election bid against the Democrats and now are being given much better deals. If you’re going to propose a bill like this, you have to go all in. You can’t pick and choose based on who supported you in the last election.
Third, I have a problem with many of the responses from union members. Some are calling Walker “Hitler” and others are basically saying, “if anything we deserve a raise because we’re underpaid.” Calling someone Hitler because he’s cutting your pay about 15% is completely uncalled for and only makes you look like an idiot.
Union Supporter from Facebook
Fourth, I don’t like the idea that these cuts are being made across the board. Cutting someone who is fully funded by the federal government weakens services and does not help our current budget problems. Gov. Doyle did the same thing when he required federally funded state employees to take furlough days, now Walker is cutting state employees who are federally funded again. It doesn’t make sense to make cuts with a machete, it should be done with a scalple.
It’s pretty clear Walker is trying to smash the public employee unions. He could have gotten the same contractual result by bargaining to an impass and then imposing his will, but he decided to make a show of force. Most public employees can’t strike, so Walker is sending them a clear message that he’s serious. I think his message goes too far, but I think the unions have to realize that cuts will be made.
Our state has a 140m huge budget deficit this year and one in the billions next year. The problem will only get bigger as most of the older workers retire on nice pensions. Our state pensions and health insurance are sort of like the auto companies, meaning something has to be done. I understand that nobody likes to have their salary and benefits cut, but there are only three options. Cut employees benefits packages, cut services or raise taxes.
I think we should be looking at all options and nothing should be spared from intense scruitany. My first cuts would be to administrators at public schools. My old high school has 7 administrators, a full time athletic director and it’s own superintendant for one school. I’d merge our high school district with the middle and elementry district and cut the fat and move that over to retaining teachers. It’s insane that there’s this much fat in a school with about 1500 kids.
I don’t have time to look for more places to cut, but you get the idea. There’s fat in most areas of state government and it will have to be cut.
My question to the people protesting:
If not your pay, what else should be cut from the state budget to close our deficit? If nothing, should we raise taxes?
We watched the sun set over the pacific each day and then drank cheap beer and wine either by a fire or at one of the local bars. We met new friends at bars and everyone went to the beach to drink, play music and have fun until 7am. It was my kind of town and I wish I could have stayed for longer. If you like to cook and go to Pichilemu, rent a cheap cabin with a kitchen and take advantage of the amazing seafood!
